A TETRAPLEGIC former Royal Navy helicopter pilot who has completed a three-and-a-half-month round-Britain voyage celebrated his landing with champagne.

Wheelchair-bound Trevor Jones sailed his revolutionary &#xA3;1m wingsailed trimaran craft Inventure into Plymouth - from where he set off on August 6.

Friends and well-wishers gathered at the Mayflower Marine to welcome the 40-year-old, who spent eight years getting the project together.

Mr Jones, accompanied by a wheel-chair-bound crewman and two able-bodied carers, used the voyage as preparation for a planned round-the-world trip, which would be the first by a tetraplegic skipper.

Just hours before arriving in Plymouth, Mr Jones said the round-Britain voyage had been "a terrific experience - a great success as far as finding out what needs to be done to get ready for going further afield, and finding out about my own limits".

He would need to rethink his proposed world route to enable him to make the voyage in shorter stretches, and would also have to improve his personal fitness, he said.

He originally hoped to set off on the circumnavigation next year, but now estimated that a full summer's work, as well as more sea trials, would be required to ready Inventure for the trip - which will require another &#xA3;1m in sponsorship.

Mr Jones, from Carmarthen, now living in Fulham, London, said he was "very happy" with the performance of the 60ft-long Inventure and her 40ft vertical wing-sails, adding, "She is an excellent platform."

During the current voyage he was accompanied by a relay of 15 crew-carers and disabled sailors, and said, "I was extremely pleased with them. They were the stars of this trip."

Mr Jones was the Navy pilot who plucked Virgin tycoon Sir Richard Bran-son to safety after his round the world balloon crashed into the Irish Sea in 1988. Shortly after that he broke his neck during trials for the Royal Navy skiing team.

But since then has flown the Channel in a specially adapted microlight aircraft, and gone scuba diving in the Red Sea.